Sumire has qualified for the Women’s Meijin league.
This is probably old news for anyone who keeps up with the Sumire or Amazon army threads on L19, but I didn’t notice until now.
(Jan. 13) Sumire (W) beat Moro Arisa 2-dan by resig.; Sumire (W) beat Kato Chie 2-dan by resig. (both games in Prelim. A, 33rd Women’s Meijin). These wins secured for Sumire the final open seat in the seven-player league.
(Feb. 10) Sumire won her first game in the Women’s Meijin League—see article above.
Being in the league means that Sumire is a maximum of nine wins away from taking the title (six for the league, three for the match).
In other news, Xie Ke has beaten Shi Yue in the quarterfinal of the Tianyuan. GTE suggests that the other games have already been played, although it doesn’t have the results.
Thank you very much for sharing I don’t follow L19 but I have enjoyed following Sumire’s career. I would be surprised if she won at her young age, but even qualifying for the league is a huge accomplishment
Nakamura Sumire 2P is only 13yo now, but already strong enough to defeat Ueno Asami, the title holder of women’s Kisei, in an important official game (in the 33rd Women’s Mejin league). If she defeats Nyu Eiko 4P in her next game scheduled on March 17th, she will have the 33rd Women’s Mejin title match against Fujisawa Rina 5P, the No. 1 female pro Go player in Japan.
If she is doing so well this way at age 13, we can only guess how much stronger she will be in 5~7 years. Who knows? She might become Japan’s Rui Naiwei 9P, the first and the only female pro Go player who has ever succeeded to defeat a world top class male pro player in a major title match games (Lee ChangHo 9P in Guksu title candidate game, and Cho Hunhyun 9P in Korean Guksu title match in 2000. Both of them were in their prime period in strength).
It often saddens me the career of sumire chan. I think in general this young insei tradition is awful because it pretty much takes away the “normal” childhood from the kids without them participating in the decision making (due to being unable to) based on just the fact that they managed to reach a certain strength before they turned 10 or whatever. And if they don’t win the lottery and become very strong and famous like sumire did, they just get" sent back" to the normal world and the normal education, which definitely becomes a negative turning point in life because they need to catch up on all the education that they missed as well as cope with the experience of “moving schools”, etc.
Maybe it’s just my mind painting it the wrong way but I think it’s definitely very bittersweet.
This is how it is for any sport. But while I have read stories of the disorientation for those “sent back,” surely their life is not so bad with parents rich enough to afford for them to start and compete in sports at so young an age. Most likely their parents won’t have any trouble finding them a job despite lack good grades.
This isn’t quite true. Sumire has two more games left to play (Nyu Eiko 4p and Mukai Chiaki 6p). If she wins both, she will finish at 5-1. Xie Yimin is also currently at only one loss. If both Sumire and Xie Yimin finish at 5-1, they will have a one game playoff to determine the challenger. If Sumire beats Nyu Eiko but loses to Mukai Chiaki, she will likely be eliminated. source
Let’s hope she can defeat Mukai Chiaki 6p, and Xie Yimin 7p if needed so that we get the amazing title series between Sumire Nakamura and Fujisawa Rina LET’S GOO!
Ueno is the #1 female japanese player right now though, not rina. Not that it makes the series less anticipated, just felt like commenting on this outdated view.
That comment was made a week ago, not sure if that makes a difference? Either way, Sumire has already defeated Ueno… so whether she is Japanese #1 or #2, the reigning titleholder Rina is by far the greater mountain looming before the young contender.
Oh sorry I thought it was a ratings thing not a crowd favourite thing… I’m not as connected to the Asian Go scene as I would like to be… Sumire is really the only person I try to put an iota of effort into following… and the occasional large international tournament here or there… just don’t have the time to follow anything closer than that
I’m not sure if it’s reflected in the elo yet but she had a spectacular year 2021 and became the new crowd favorite for the strongest female player. In terms of the progress towards taking the titles from rina, I think she’s still only at 1 out of 4.
Yo Seiki has been doing well lately. He is challenging Kyo Kagen for the Judan but he is also doing well in the other title qualifying rounds. He could very well be challenging Iyama Yuta for the Honinbo title soon. And maybe the Meijin as well.
For a while now, I’ve wanted to improve Sumire’s Sensei’s Library article, which hasn’t been touched since 2019.
But there is so much to add that instead of making a start, I’ve paradoxically done nothing at all… I posted about getting it up to date on L19 last year, but no-one even responded.
I don’t follow L19 but I have enjoyed following Sumire’s career. I would be surprised if she won at her young age, but even qualifying for the league is a huge accomplishment
I just quoted all that from the top comment of the Reddit thread I linked
